Yes We Can - Barak Obama and Social Media

barack obama + social media

learnings for volunteering organisations
Tuesday, 16 June 2009

an unlikely story


he was a political unknown until 2004


he’d only been in the
Senate for 4 years


he was

46


nobody was looking for obama


he’s black in a country which
until recently practiced apartheid


his
middle name
is Hussein


and his
surname rhymes
with

Osama

young people don’t care and
don’t win elections, right?

13 million email subscribers
3 million profiles created
3.9 million donations
93% less than $100
200,000 offline events planned
35,000 groups created
3.2 million Facebook friends
$640million raised
5 million volunteers
3,600 volunteers in 1 State
gave 6 weeks of unpaid work


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zK7pWOgRqYM


so how did
Obama use social
media to mobilise
volunteers?


he spent time where the
young people are

16
Official Social Spaces


75% of
the
Facebook community
(official)
1,110 exists
Facebook
“out there”
Glee (“1M Strong”)
2 587 he was
Twitter
46
MyBarackObama
930 part of their
Mi
Gente Black Planet
communities
54 490
You
Tube
62 MySpace
415


he used their media and
their language


he made
it about ‘you’
your
choices
your
responsibility
your
benefits


he gave volunteers their own identity

volunteers have personalised profiles

everything they
do is recorded
and displayed on
a public
dashboard


volunteers set their own targets
a thermometer shows their progress
the difference they made is plain to see

volunteers motivated by competition
they get points for achievements
their ranking increases as they do more

volunteering is on their doorstep


volunteers recruit their own friends
peers recruit peers


volunteers are given a
voice via the blogging
platform

they talk
about what
they have
done

it gets published on the
main site

“...In our own campaign, polling was just one way we
viewed how we were doing in a state in the general
election. We had a lot of voter identification work. We
had a lot of field data. We don't have to wait for a state to
report in how they did that night; we can look at it, down
to the volunteer level, because we trusted our
volunteers. We gave them the voter file, we said here are
the people on your block, you go talk to 'em, you record
the result of the conversation. And we in Chicago could
look at that in real-time and help us plan our resource”
David Plouffe, Obama Campaign Director

volunteers were given responsibility.
they became a trusted data source.
they were part of the infrastructure.

they give songs, he
their time in photos, harnessed
fun, creative diaries, their urge
ways designs, for creativity

he gave them the tools to take action
in their own time in easy ways
in innovative ways

he made volunteers
feel part of something
bigger

“At least 60,000 people have applied to be
volunteers during the days of activities
surrounding the inauguration of
U.S...People want to get involved. People
want to be a part of this thing ... a part of
history.“ Transition committee spokesman Kevin Griffis


thanked.
in real time.
directly.

new methods
enhanced the
campaign but did not
replace traditional
methods


nice rewards

tailored tasks

"Volunteer citizens were involved at every
level and no one was rejected. Everyone
had a role: harnessing the power of the
web, making phone calls, transporting
electors, reaching the uninvolved” Hans
Riemer, national youth vote director for the Obama campaign


bite-size tasks

"It's not rocket science," he says. "What we have
to do is give them the tools to create a plan and
just keep in touch with them as they create their
plan and execute it. Winning an election is just a
matter of breaking it down into manageable
pieces, so we show them what those pieces are,
and then turn them loose. As long as we can do
that, there's no problem. They can make it
happen." Hans Riemer, national youth vote director for the
Obama campaign


focused on the human
"We had a volunteer headquarters that we
all pretty much lived in," says Liz Lempert,
who co-chaired an Obama group in
Princeton, N.J., that will meet next week.
"Moving out of that office is really hard.
People just want to keep those ties
together."

focused on the emotional


key learnings

go to where young people are, instead of expecting them to come to us

give young people the tools and the responsibility to use them

make young people feel part of something bigger

leverage young people’s urge for competition and sociability

use digital to communicate, to feedback, to thank, in real time

use social media to enhance but not replace traditional methods


3 things you can do tomorrow

create a twitter feed
as a record of activity

record and display
everything they do

create a youtube
channel for video
volunteer diaries

thank you*
sidekickstudios.net

*especially to all those people I got images and charts from but haven’t credited


Yes We Can - Barak Obama and Social Media

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Yes We Can - Barak Obama and Social Media